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THIS IS YOUR CUSTOMARY NOTICE THAT STARTOPIA IS ON SALE AT GOG AND YOU SHOULD BUY IT

This, very much so. Such a shame that this game did poorly on release. Was it not advertised at all, or something? I didn't even know it existed till it came out on GOG, and I don't have my usual excuse (with GOG's back catalogue) of having been a small child at the time.

"Harry uses the One Ring to defeat Magneto and save the Rebellion!"With thanks to RaveTurned in comments on the main page.

This, very much so. Such a shame that this game did poorly on release. Was it not advertised at all, or something? I didn't even know it existed till it came out on GOG, and I don't have my usual excuse (with GOG's back catalogue) of having been a small child at the time.

I can appreciate that you're making the argument on moral terms rather than legal ones, I just still don't agree. When I buy a game from Humble, I'm getting two copies of the game. If developers don't like that, they shouldn't participate, or they should get Humble to change how they sell things.

You're not getting two copies though. You're getting one, provided to you in whatever form you find most convenient: Steam or DRM-free. Yeah, you can use one yourself and give one away but why stop there? Why do you only have two copies? You can only redeem the Steam one once but the DRM-free copy can be downloaded as much as you want! If you're going to draw the line at the limit of what you *can* do, rather than what you were asked to and agreed to do, why not share your Humble URL with all your friends and let them all download the DRM free version? If Humble don't want people doing that, they'll just have to change the way they sell things. By not offering DRM free versions. Great.

Originally Posted by sonson

If they want the bundle to be treated inseparable then they should return to doing as they were before and make the keys a single bundle key rather than six separate ones or whatever.

And they will. They do it this way now as some people don't like having games they don't want in their Steam library. If sharing becomes a problem, they'll change it back for sure.

Originally Posted by RobF

If I've got spare codes, damn right I'm going to pass them along to someone who wants to play the videogame I've got a spare code for. I'll also play with matches if I want to, y'know?

The idea that passing something along I've paid for is even remotely morally similar to piracy is absurd. Sometimes I really do despair that we cultivate this idea that sharing things is bad.

The notion of "passing along stuff I've paid for" is also... problematic with Pay What You Want bundles. If you take it in the spirit of the bundle (so it's not just games for a dollar) then there's a big difference between:

"wow, the latest Humble Bundle is ace, I paid $20 for it as those games are worth that much, but I own all but one of them already, so I'm giving away the spare codes to the first people to post"

And

"wow, the latest Humble Bundle is great, but I already own all but one of the games so just picked it up for $2. Here are my spare codes if anyone wants them"

Do you see? In the first quote, the guy paid for those extra codes. In the second quote, he didn't. He purposefully ignored the value of those codes when calculating what the bundle was worth to him. But then used them as gifts anyway. That's the fundamental issue with giving away codes from PWYW bundles. The dissonance where someone can pay what the bundle is worth directly to them, then give away the spare stuff that they didn't account for.

You're not getting two copies though. You're getting one, provided to you in whatever form you find most convenient: Steam or DRM-free. Yeah, you can use one yourself and give one away but why stop there? Why do you only have two copies? You can only redeem the Steam one once but the DRM-free copy can be downloaded as much as you want! If you're going to draw the line at the limit of what you *can* do, rather than what you were asked to and agreed to do, why not share your Humble URL with all your friends and let them all download the DRM free version?

No, it's made quite clear that you get one 'license' as it were, in two different formats. It's made quite clear you're buying one copy for personal use, not two. Sharing the 'second' copy is no different to sharing the third, fourth or fifth copy of the DRM free version. It's ethically identical.

You've created this notion that you get two copies in every Humble Bundle to justify it to yourself, but it's totally arbitrary. I could say every Humble Bundle is five copies, and sharing the link with four friends is fine, but one more and it becomes unethical. I just made up the number five. Like you made up the number two. It's not either. It's one.

Anno 2070 complete edition is $10.95 in nuuvem. Does anybody knows if they give a uplay key?

Thanks.
That's the best price I've seen for Anno 2070 so far, so I took the leap faith with Nuuvem and got it.
It was also nice to see that Uplay finally let's you activate a game before downloading it.

You've created this notion that you get two copies in every Humble Bundle

I've created nothing. You get two copies in every Humble Bundle.

to justify it to yourself

Justify what to myself? I don't give away my Humble keys, as I've said repeatedly.

I could say every Humble Bundle is five copies,

You could say whatever you like, and I'll support your right to say it, but making copies of something isn't the same as permanently giving away a license to it. One is like photocopying a textbook multiple times and distributing them and the other is giving someone the original.

Like you made up the number two. It's not either. It's one.

When I look at the games in my Humble collection, I see two versions of each: DRM-free and Steam key, both provided by Humble as a part of our mutually-consensual transaction. Am I hallucinating?

You're misunderstanding the different 'versions' (or forms of distribution) as representing different 'copies' (or 'licenses').

I can just about understand that being intuitive to someone. However, that is not the intention. As far as Humble Bundle are concerned, you're buying one licence for each game - and for some games you can associate that license with your Steam account.

To make it perhaps slightly clearer:
The keys (in this case) are just a secret phrase that let's you communicate to Steam or Desura or whatever that you've bought a license to the game (and which allow you to associate that license with your account on that service, and download the game).

(It's perhaps slightly complicated by some games where all licenses come with the ability to associate the game with every service.)

I guess that represents a significant shift from when keys were a secret phrase that you used to communicate to the game that you were a genuine owner, and later on to confirm that you were the only person using that particular secret phrase. On that understanding of how a key is used, multiple keys (or a key, and access to a copy the game that doesn't need a key) could well be misunderstood to imply multiple copies.

I think what's coming out of this (actually valuable to the thread - if not entirely on-topic) discussion is that there is no limit to the things people will believe they have the right-to when it comes to spending their money on stuff - and they will also defend their crazy beliefs in some amazingly daft ways.

The idea that a Steam Key and a DRM-free copy amount to '2 copies' of a game is just-plain nuts - it's a Steam library key and a DRM-free copy FOR YOU - YOU get to choose which you use - you can even use both but it is not in ANY way a licence to give one of them away...

I think a lot of this is reinforced by the relative cheapness of bundles - it certainly proves that something being cheap doesn't make people respect it any more tho.

I have a real-life conundrum which is something like this - how would YOU handle it.

Years ago I bought GalCivII - a physical copy in a nice steel box. Played it - wasn't really my cuppa - sold it on eBay.

Now, part of the installation process was to install Impulse - this is the relatively-early days of DD but you could register your copy with that for reasons which weren't entirely clear to me at the time.

I never really used Impulse - it got uninstalled when GalCivII did - yet years later when I re-installed it, there is 'my copy' of GalCivII sitting waiting to be installed again!

Now - someone bought the original box and didn't complain about not being able to register or play it - so I assume they were happy enough (if they'd said anything, I'd have handed-over the Impulse login).

They didn't tho - so I appear to still "own" it - in my shoes, would YOU play it again - it's just a matter of clicking "install" here...?

I don't think it's nuts - I think it's that licenses aren't a very natural thing to get your head around (and we're still fighting in various places in the world to assert some previously natural consumer rights with respect to them).

Particularly since for a long time, licenses were absolutely represented (for normal human beings) by the pretty box you bought (or at most some of the gubbins in it) or the strange sequence of letters and numbers you had to enter when you installed the software.

there is no limit to the things people will believe they have the right-to when it comes to spending their money on stuff

I agree trjp, trjp is a terrible person.

They didn't tho - so I appear to still "own" it - in my shoes, would YOU play it again - it's just a matter of clicking "install" here...?

To be honest, if I suddenly had an urge to play GalCiv II, probably depending on the price and difficulty of buying it again on Impulse. (Which is presumably impossible without revealing to them that you violated their license terms.)

It's notable that we're talking 2006 here - I think people had no real grasp of the whole 'registering keys into online services' idea at that point (I believe I'd not even used Steam for anything other than Half Life 2 at that point).

Also - EULAs are of dubious merit (legally and - in many cases, morally too) - remember that those were the days when you bought a game and then sold it again when you were done with it. That's how things worked in 2006 :)

p.s. and then, of course, Stardock sold-off the platform anyway so GOD knows where anyone stands on all of that now. I assume whoever bought my copy was happy enough - I suspect the standard game didn't REQUIRE Impulse to work anyway (it certainly doesn't now).

I don't think it's nuts - I think it's that licenses aren't a very natural thing to get your head around (and we're still fighting in various places in the world to assert some previously natural consumer rights with respect to them).

Particularly since for a long time, licenses were absolutely represented (for normal human beings) by the pretty box you bought (or at most some of the gubbins in it) or the strange sequence of letters and numbers you had to enter when you installed the software.

I think it's nuts because it's pretty clear Humble are not giving people '2 copies of a game' - apart from anything else, if they were they'd be saying "BUY THIS AND GIVE A COPY TO YOUR MATES".

Instead they're saying "here have a stack of cheap games - for YOU and ONLY YOU" and people are shaking their fists and yelling "corporate control" - because they are, frankly, entitled assholes.

I think it's nuts because it's pretty clear Humble are not giving people '2 copies of a game' - apart from anything else, if they were they'd be saying "BUY THIS AND GIVE A COPY TO YOUR MATES".

Instead they're saying "here have a stack of cheap games - for YOU and ONLY YOU" and people are shaking their fists and yelling "corporate control" - because they are, frankly, entitled assholes.

Whether or not it's reasonable to give one of them to a friend, it's certainly reasonable to consider that two copies of the game. It's just two copies you have not been given permission to redistribute to other users. Getting worked up about how many copies you've been given clouds the issue.

It is reasonable for a company to tell you that you cannot reidstribute or sell your copies? I think it's reasonable for them to say that I cannot redistribute copies of the game to friends or strangers simply because I can. I don't think it's reasonable for them to say "this product can never change hands without our explicit say-so, or to restrict sharing of games within a household or similar property-mixing relationship except with fuzzy boundaries like an EULA. If you really want one product per user even in an intimate property sharing relationship ... you have to make a hard block like DRM or ask that users please buy a new copy for each household member who plays and hope for the best.

For example, if I have multiple computers ... I don't see why we shouldn't install a DRM free game on both machines. If I share those computers with a spouse or live-in partner, I don't see why I we shouldn't be allowed to both play games so installed on our shared computers. I don't feel like this is abusive or wrong just as I don't think it's wrong to burn a CD to both of MP3 players. Once the intimate property sharing relationship ends ... we should in theory make sure that only one person has access to any one of these products ... I don't know if I would remember or have the presence of mind or dedication to do that. So I guess this stance is morally ambiguous/internally inconsistent in that sense.

It boils down to this. I understand contracts. I can respect not giving DRM free copies of a game to all my friends without first purchasing gift copies. But when emotionally (and legally) a lot of my stuff belongs to another person, I just don't feel anywhere near as bad sharing a game with that person. If companies want to hold me to a stricter code, I'm really going to expect them to do it with DRM and the like and not just expect me to radically change my conception of property. It's already hard enough trying to get used to the digital world and I try my best to accept the differences between ordinary and digital property. But there are some things I just can't make work in my head the way companies want me to.

Last edited by gwathdring; 15-09-2013 at 04:36 AM.

I think of [the Internet] as a grisly raw steak laid out on a porcelain benchtop in the sun, covered in chocolate hazelnut sauce. In the background plays Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You. There’s lots of fog. --tomeoftom